I live in VA but my boat is in MD and I need to get it registered there b/c most of the bay I'll be sailing in is MD waters. I've found the form and have a bill of sale but it looks like MD requires a safety class to operate the boat in MD waters. The course is $15 and can be taken online. I was wondering if its possible for me to register the boat in VA and avoid this requirement. If not, how long does the registration take to process? Thanks.

Oh the fun of out of state boaters.
Thank you ZZ because whether you know it or not you will also be paying an excise tax that is the difference between VA sales tax and MD sales tax. Fortunately for your boat that's not a small fortune, but do keep it in mind.

Thank you for supporting my boating habit.
The boating safety course only applies if you are young (July 1972) us old farts get better insurance so we are free to be stupid on the water.

If your boat is federally documented, you don't have to register it in MD.

But you still have to get a MD sticker ($5/year) and pay the one-time 5% excise tax if you will primarily keep the boat in MD waters. There are a few exceptions that will let you avoid the MD excise tax, but they don't apply to most people.

By choosing to post the reply above you agree to the rules you agreed to when joining Sailnet.
Click Here to view those rules.

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the SailNet Community forums, you must first register. Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.Please note: After entering 3 characters a list of Usernames already in use will appear and the list will disappear once a valid Username is entered.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.